2 weeks Ago
Bengaluru: Karnataka high court recently directed the principal secretary and the commissioner of food and civil supplies to formulate guidelines on what would amount to a " suitable business premise " for housing a fair price shop. Justice Suraj Govindaraj gave this direction while dealing with a petition pertaining to eligibility criteria for fair price shops under the Karnataka Essential Commodities ( Public Distribution System ) Control Order, 1992. "Though eligibility conditions indicate a suitable business premise, there is no definition or requirement of such a premise mentioned.
This gives wide discretion for the interpretation of the words ‘suitable business premise'. This can lead to opaque consideration of applications by the authorities concerned, with the applicants themselves not knowing what criteria they have to fulfil to be considered a suitable premise," the judge noted in his order. The court said the norms to be framed should define a suitable business premise based on the location of property, whether it comes under a metropolitan area, corporation area, municipal area, town municipal area and village panchayat area, among others.
The judge said the eligibility criteria should also consider "the number of cards that can be attached to a particular fair price depot and, on that basis, the supply which said fair price depot would be entitled to, the quantum of foodgrains and other material that would be required to be stored by the person granted authorisation, the area required for such storage, the ventilation, and all other safety requirements to be followed and applied to such fair price depot". The two officers have been granted 60 days time for compliance. In the case at hand, Manjunath, a resident of Rammanahalli, Mysuru taluk, belonging to the fisherman community, was granted authorisation for running a fair price depot in Dec 2002.
The authorisation was renewed from time to time. However, Shivakumar, belonging to an SC community, challenged the authorisation granted to Manjunath. After several rounds of litigation before various authorities, including the appellate authority, a decision was given stating that though both Manjunath and Shivakumar were eligible, the latter should be given priority as he belongs to SC category.
The latest order, passed by the appellate authority on Oct 20, 2018, was challenged by Manjunath. After perusing the materials on record, Justice Govindaraj directed the deputy commissioner to decide on the claim afresh after analysing the two applications in terms of the eligibility conditions contained in the 1992 order..
